As low calorie beverages such as diet soft drinks have become more popular due to recent developments in artificial sweeteners, consumer demand for additional types of palatable drinks has increased. A demand has thus developed for a diet soft drink, or low calorie beverage, which is semi-frozen. Beverages having a semi-frozen or slushy consistency have previously been developed and successfully distributed in the past, but the slushy drinks have had relatively high calorie content.
In the past, the beverage industry has been unable to successfully manufacture a low calorie syrup capable of being used in conventional semi-frozen beverage-making machines. Only syrups having a high percentage of natural sweeteners have been heretofore used in conventional semi-frozen beverage-making machines because of temperature limitations. Generally, such slush machines operate at temperatures between 26 degrees to 28 degrees Fahrenheit, and conventional solutions containing artificial sweeteners tend to freeze in the machine to create extreme operational problems. For example, previously attempted slush drinks using artificial sweeteners have frozen in the machines, cracking or breaking impellers in the machines.
A need has therefore arisen for a low calorie slush beverage with a depressed freezing point to accommodate the low temperatures in a conventional slush beverage machine in order to provide a low calorie slush drink with similar texture and flavor as previous high calorie slush drinks.